Kamran Abbasi

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not what matters; it’s the markets, stupid. By many accounts, Donald Trump is keen to end the US and Israel’s war on Iran not because nebulous objectives have been achieved or because the world is now a safer place. The reason is a global economy spiralling out of control over the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and “the markets” don’t like it. At this moment, thank heaven for the markets—although they played a strong hand in creating the crisis in the first place.However, one contributor to that market, the pharmaceutical industry, continues to soar untroubled above a global catastrophe. Médecins Sans Frontières—better known for its humanitarian work responding to the criminal destruction of civilian life and infrastructure in the Middle East, which regrettably continues to include hospitals and healthcare facilities—is taking the time to bring another parallel war back to our attention: the …

Is technology already ruling us? A recent television series, The Capture , features artificial intelligence as its central character. The AI even has a name: Simon. In a fictional British security service humans no longer make decisions, however high ranking. Simon decides on everything, and what Simon says is an order to execute. Does the same apply to the UK government and Palantir, a controversial technology company?The debate on health data is highly charged. What are the principles of data stewardship? How should data be safely managed? We must make the best technical use of the data while ensuring privacy and security. It’s also important to operate the data environment in an ethically sound way, meeting the expectations of patients and health professionals.An alarming data breach at the …

Is Donald Trump well? The US president claims that his health is “perfect,” but not judging by his medical history. Given that most national leaders are of a certain age before they gain power, some ill health is inevitable. Illness in leaders is a point of both academic study and unfettered speculation—a prime example being how Winston Churchill’s illnesses affected his decision making.1 Leadership can change the wellbeing of leaders too, as the doctor and politician David Owen has shown in his work on hubris.2Cognitive competence of leaders is harder to get at, and commenting on it has become taboo for health professionals. The General Medical Council advises against it in the UK, and the Goldwater rule also discourages it in the US. But these can’t be absolutes, surely? …

An argument championed by the US regime’s health leaders is that they are returning to core scientific principles. It’s an argument open to challenge. When Donald Trump proposed a link between using Tylenol (paracetamol) in pregnancy and ADHD and autism spectrum disorder in children (doi:10.1136/bmj.r2025),1 the roars of scepticism were soon followed by evidence syntheses that failed to find an association (doi:10.1136/bmj.r2368 doi:10.1136/bmj-2025-088141 doi:10.1136/bmj.r2438).234Has the idea died? Given that Trump’s every statement is a shot heard around the world—and that a technical article in a medical journal may not be read even by its intended audience of professionals—the chances …

Less dangerous liaisons: a solution to corporate corruption of political choice

Power over the people: unwise NHS reform delivers unprecedented political control

The debate on prostate cancer screening is life, the universe, and everything boiled down to one question — and the answer isn’t 42. Whether or not men should be routinely screened for prostate cancer seems simple enough to answer, but only on the face of it. As two position statements from the UK’s National Screening Committee show — one on multicancer detection tests (doi:10.1136/bmj-2026-089868),1 the other on surrogate outcomes (doi:10.1136/bmj-2026-629407)2 — screening decisions are steeped in complexity.Albert Einstein is credited with saying, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” This is advice that medical professionals and journals are well advised to heed. Certainly, the screening committee has mastered it: you may not agree with the committee’s verdicts, but you can’t fault the detailed clarity of its explanations.The clamour for screening is everywhere. If you can test for it, you should screen for it. A missed or late …

There is always something new under the sun. Last week the American Diabetes Association (ADA) shocked the world of medicine and science by ordering police to remove its journal’s editor, and others, from the society’s major annual conference (doi:10.1136/bmj-2026-511576).1 Steven Kahn, editor in chief of the society’s journal Diabetes Care , had upset the ADA leadership by writing and publishing a journal editorial critical of President Trump’s damaging attack on US medical science. The ADA explained itself by saying that it was unable to allow politicisation of its event because of its charitable status. The explanation rang hollow given that it had invited members of the Trump administration to speak at the conference.If there is a time for science editors to get political—and US journals tend to be more conservative and politically silent than their UK counterparts—it is now (doi:10.1136/bmj-2026-555118).2 Even the New England Journal of Medicine recently took the rare step of criticising the …

Two hundred and fifty years after liberation from British colonialism, the United States is co-hosting the football World Cup. The US might even win it for the first time—although France, its former ally against the British, seems best placed. German football manager Jürgen Klopp once called football the most important of the least important things. Cricket fans might disagree (I raise my hand here), but Klopp is setting the proper context for sport.Sadly, the US anniversary celebrations are clouded by far more troubling attempts at world domination. President Donald Trump’s aggressive strategy on pharmaceutical drug …

The startling safety data from two new reviews on maternity services might be expected to trigger immediate measures for improvement. However, the likelihood is that nothing will change quickly. The reasons for this dispiriting conclusion include the simple fact that cultural change, which seems to be at the heart of the maternity services crisis, is hard to achieve in a hurry. Another is that many other reviews and investigations in the same clinical area have failed to stop the crisis. A question for the UK’s new health secretary is: what will be different this time around?The Ockenden review is an independent inquiry into NHS maternity services in Nottingham (doi:10.1136/bmj-2026-100083).1 It covers maternity care from 2012 to 2025 and involves nearly 2500 families, making it the biggest ever NHS maternity review. Five hundred mothers and babies experienced serious or avoidable harm. The deaths …